Lindsay Howard

Newfoundland finally has its own “Pigasso”: Izzy, a two year old pig who plays the piano, dabbles in ring toss and paints. She uses her head and snout, and already has a Facebook page selling her works for under $20. Paddy thinks Warhol’s piss paintings are better, but with the Canadian dollar just three quarters of the American, it’s at the very least an easy way to build that animal art collection.) [CBC News]

Sotheby’s CEO confirms their most recent sales period is lower than in the 2013 and 2014 periods. On top of that, even though overtures are made that they’re focusing on retaining talent, two of their top dealmakers have bounced: Alex Rotter, co-head of their contemporary art department and David Norman, co-chairman of their Impressionist and modern art world-wide. The exits follow the November exodus of senior experts following a management shake-up. [Bloomberg News]

Jim Windolf, the New York Times’ Men’s Style editor, is live-tweeting the late delivery of a Will Forte profile from writer George Gurley. Trigger warning: any writer who has pushed back at a deadline might suffer PTSD flare ups in reading the despairing communiqués from Gurley. [@jimwindolf]

Related: turns out writers and spies have a lot in common — isolation, loss of perspective, a willingness to disappear, alcoholism. [Lapham’s Quarterly]

Barry Schwabsky punctures the mythic balloon of Black Mountain College, the subject of a touring exhibition that’s been at Boston’s ICA and is now at the Hammer until May. “Why the recurring preoccupation with a short-lived, unaccredited school at the back of beyond, which never had enough students to pay its way?” he asks. While Schwabsky acknowledges its creative optimism and “infectious sense of possibility”, he points out its illusions: the school’s impossible internal politics, and “an education philosophy based on ‘the whole person’ gave no indication of how to square the conflicting goals of community and individuality.” [The Nation]

The digital age has flooded us with images and reproductions of everything and anything. That has its ups and downs, but certainly one “up” is that this iconic Gordon Parks photograph of Ella Watson is available for anyone to purchase and put up in their homes thanks to 20×200. The image shows Watson, an African American, with a broom and a mop standing in front of an American flag. Parks once called the photograph an indictment of America. [20×200]

Artprize has announced its partnership with Independent Curators International (ICI). ICI will develop three curatorial mentorship programs intended to pump up the experience of curators and partner institutions participating in the ArtPrize Fellowship for Emerging Curators. [Artprize]

There is an editor asleep at the wheel over the Observer. Ryan Steadman interviews NewHive curator Lindsay Howard about online art, and begins his questions with the following outdated cliche “The Internet Art is still so new to the art world that it feels a bit like the Wild West”. Later he tells Howard she “legitimized” digital art by organizing the first auction of digital art at Phillips. Howard, in her answer, not only doesn’t challenge the assumption that only the sale of culture legitimizes it, but fails to mention the collaborators who approached her with the idea to do the auction in the first place: Megan Newcome and Annie Werner. Other than that, a great interview. [The Observer]

Let’s face it: last week’s GIF Free For All awards were a hot bed of incest, corruption and petty politics. It’s time to set the record straight. The real GIF Awards need to go to Wallpapers. Why? Because these are gifs that can be tiled, and we all know bigger is better.

Wallpapers is a collaborative project founded in 2011 by artists Sara Ludy, Nicolas Sassoon and Sylvain Sailly. Now in its second iteration, Wallpapers has been shown at 319 Scholes in New York (curated by Lindsay Howard), Western Front in Vancouver (curated by Sarah Todd), and PAMI Festival in London (curated by Bubblebyte.org). This latest iteration (the second), will show at the New Forms Festival 12 in Vancouver (curated by Malcolm Levy). Participants include Laura Brothers, Rollin Leonard, Sara Ludy, Lorna Mills, Brenna Murphy, Sylvain Sailly, Nicolas Sassoon, Rick Silva, Krist Wood.

Rick Silva

And now to the burning question: Who has made the best GIF? I announce a tie between Sylvain Sailly,Rick Silva and Laura Brothers! These GIFs couldn’t look more different from each other, but they both possess the same quality: Graphic appeal. As a viewer, you want to see the loop completed. There may be no better marker of a good GIF.

Looks like Paddles ON! London, is on its way to replicating the strides made during last year’s much-discussed net-art auction, the first at a major auction house. Last fall, the auction held in New York at Phillips totalled $90,600 on the sale of 16 pieces out of 20 lots. People widely lauded the auction as a success—a GIF sold for $1,300 and the excitement from the live auction crowd was palpable—but financially, the case for Paddles ON! achievements aren’t clear cut. Nine of the works sold for less than their estimated bids, and four of those were bought in by the auction house.

C’mon, who’s it gonna be? Rhizome has posted a job listing to replace Lauren Cornell as Executive Director, but nobody seems to have any idea who could replace her. The applicant would need to be familiar with net art and new media, have curatorial and/or grant-writing experience, and have the ability to bring in cash money from donors and collectors. Who fits that profile? We have no idea.

I’m getting tired of seeing listings for dude-dominated digital art shows. Just to count what I’ve seen in the last month: The USB Show, at Paris’s Le Point Éphémère two weeks ago, invited one woman artist to participate out of 21; Astral Projection Abduction Fantasy, which ran from February 23rd to March 23rd in Dublin, included three women out of 29 artists; and the April 12th BYOB show, in Milan, only included 9 women out of 42 invited artists. These shows might as well be Lilith Fair, though, relative to the worst recent offender, Dotcom, a show organized by the anonymous collective BSNP at the Centre d’Art Bastille in France. That group show runs through June 10th and includes no women at all.